Let everyone play is not aimed at Stax or any propaganda kind effect or whatever. In no way it does stop any player.
Killing everyone at the table turn 4 with a 2 cards combo with a force of will in hand is. That's not letting others play.
Do I need to make it clearer?
How is that not letting other people play? Presumably, everyone in a playgroup where that is common will be running highly tuned decks, meaning they will also be playing their decks similarly fast or capable of answering such decks. As a result, everyone will be able to play. If everyone's decks are built to go off on turn 3-5 and someone combos off on T4, it's no different from everyone's decks being built to go off on turn 10-12 and someone winning T11.
So again, forget about these silly rules and just play decks that fit how your playgroup wants to play.
Defining how quick would be quick would not be useful. The message here is: don't end the game all by yourself while everyone is at 40 or above with an interesting board state. You get it? It's not necessarily time/turn related.
That's why I added : Ending games abruptly will alter the game experience.
It can't be referred to "your playgroup" because your playgroup could play Competitive Magic and it would be counter-intuitive. GCL is for casual Commander, not competitive. So, don't win too quickly for a casual environment that is more about the experience than the win. (It's implicit that you'll get along with most players, they're enjoying the same kind of Commander you do. If you're playing by GCL philosophy.)
Your quick set of rules is the RC's position, mostly. GCL is promoting the experience versus the win. Instead of "We agree on the same playstyle, power level, etc." (RC'S position) GCL says "We play like this (A,B,C), do you agree?"
Casual and competitive are not by any means mutually exclusive. Many of the least casual players I've come across hate even the slightest thought of competitiveness. You know the kind, the ones who go around telling everyone how a format should be played and throwing a hissy fit the moment someone does something they don't like. That's the antithesis of "casual" - it's taking the game way way too seriously. Whereas many competitive players are very casual - they play to win, but they're not bothered of they don't. They just shuffle up their decks and play again. They're taking things easy, having fun, and yet still playing to win.
So, why exactly do you need these rules again? Just do as I suggested earlier, and the RC suggest and agree with your playgroup how you want to play. No need for anything further.
The actual mana symbol is inside the italic text. Italics in rules text are always reminder text, and are not part of the color identity.
The fact that so many people like you get this wrong and firmly believe they are correct is further evidence this rule needs to change.
PS - read the Comprehensive Rulebook entry for Extort, it will explain why any card with it has color identity WB (or a superset thereof)
Except it's actually you that's wrong. The full wording of extort in the CR is irrelevant with regards to colour identity, what matters is what appears as rules text on the card. From earlier in this thread, here's a post from one of the guys who actually creates and maintains the rules of EDH:
Crypt Ghast is fine in mono-black. Color Identity looks at the symbols on the card (ignoring reminder text). It doesn't look through into the CR to do text replacement or anything odd like that.
Personally, I'd say to give it a try. It's a great card for Thada. If your playgroup starts getting really upset about it, you can take it out. It's not that expensive a card so you've not wasted big money or anything.
Personally, I that making hybrids available to one of their colours in EDH will just end up being even more confusing for new players. From my experiences of playing with players fresh to EDH, I've never seen anyone confused or upset that they can't use their hybrid cards in a mono-colour deck. After all, it's pretty obvious to them: Spitting Image is blue and green therefore its colour identity is blue and green regardless of what mana can be spent on it. Conversely, Crypt Ghast is a black card, so it's colour identity is black. Where the confusion lies, where it gets unintuitive for new players, is when colour and colour identity don't match. Hell, I find many new EDH players aren't even aware that there is a difference. They assume that the limitations on deckbuilding in EDH are built around card colour and not colour identity.
The particular examples I see a lot of are the Innistrad off-colour flashback cards. A lot of people getting into EDH over the last couple of years will have a good supply of them, and when building, say, a mono red deck, they see the Ancient Grudge sitting in their box and think "that's a red card, therefore I can put it into my red deck", not realising that the card's colour identity is actually red/green.
The proposal to make hybrids available to either of their colours will exasperate this. People would be able to include cards who's colour is blue/white in thier blue/black deck. To a new player, who's under the impression you have to stick to your commander's colours, that's just going to be confusing.
The problem with the "Don't win too quickly" is that it doesn't define "too quickly". Which, I suppose, is inevitable, because there is no absolute definition of "too quickly". If that rule is to stay, then how it should read is "Don't win too quickly for your playgroup". And with that tweak, I actually think it's a very good rule to follow, even if it might not need explicitly stating. If you're playgroup loves playing hermit druid and similar top end decks, then there is no too fast. If you playgroup likes durdling around for 15 turns, then said hermit druid deck is most certainly too fast.
Of course, such a prinicple can then be extended out to other aspects of the game. Instead of saying "don't play control decks", say "don't play heavier control than your playgroup enjoys". Instead of "don't play MLD", it's "don't play more MLD than your playgroup likes". Or in general, play what the group as a whole likes playing.
So if I did have to condense things down to a set of quick rules, I would have two:
1 - Whichever variation on "don't be an arse" you like - personally, I tend to favour Abraham Lincoln's famous words: "Be excellent to each other and party on dudes", but the exact language is down to you
2 - Discuss and agree with your playgroup on some rough guidelines on what everyone wants to play with and against and generally stick to them.
Possibly a third one:
3 - If newly joining a group, err on the side of caution - it's easier to make friends if you go in with a "crap" deck and lose to hermit druid than if you start with hermit druid and destroy "crap" decks
I run a Karador Spirit Tribal (with a dash of Arcane in there) deck. Looking at this card, I do not regret not having access to red in any way shape or form.
While I like Concentrate and other similar straight up draw spells in blue (e.g. Tidings), I find that, given how my blue decks play, I'd usually prefer to spend an extra mana and get instant speed with Jace's Ingenuity.
My first thoughts when it comes to Crusades is that they were targeted at a specific religion. Whether it was Islam, Paganism or a Christian heresy, each Crusade was focused on destroying a particular set of beliefs. Now, of course, in Magic, we don't have systems of beliefs, we have colours. So I'm thinking something like this:
RWB1 Raymond, Crusader
Legendary Creature - Human Knight Cleric
First Strike, Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield chose a color
Knights and clerics you control have protection from the chosen color
Whenever an opponent casts a spell of the chosen color, that player loses 1 life and you may place a +1/+1 counter on ~.
3/2
Fight the good fight, believe what is right, Crusader, the lord of the realm
Curse of Exhaustion stops a player from playing more than one spell per turn.
With Possibility Storm out, whenever you cast a spell, you put it on the bottom of your library, then reveal cards until you hit something with the same type, then you cast that.
Because you already cast a spell, you can't cast the spell Possibility Storm revealed, so nothing will happen. You're effectively locked out of casting spells from your hand.
works better in 1v1.
i would probably run it in a u/r and run arcane laboratory.
Just replace Curse of Exhaustion with the enchantment it's meant to model: Rule of Law.
That'd lock you out of the game too.
Which is why you fetch it and PS with Enduring Ideal....
Collective voyage/Noble Benefactor/Veteran Explorer - I strongly dislike group hug. These cards make many of my carefully thought out deck building considerations for ramp and card draw largely irrelevant. The greedy elf deck across the table, who spends 7/10 games mana screwed because of his poor land/spell distribution is suddenly back in the game secure in the knowledge that 30 lands is exactly the right amount of fuel for his deck full of X spells and six drops. He has learned nothing. Worse still, the first moderately competitive player to untap with all that land tends to win on the spot, so consistently that I have to wonder if the troll playing collective voyage and the scrubs all contributing mana into it aren't willfully participating in a game of collective kingmaking just to get the game over with..
Yeah, I really hate these cards. Collective voyage in particular. Either it screws up the game completely and makes it boring due to trivialising resource management, or someone is doing something deliberate with it, yet the rest of the table is blind to that because they want TEH MANAS!!! I mean, seriously, I've had a game where the Progenitus player did T2 Lotus Cobra followed by a t3 Collective Voyage and the rest of the table still put 10 mana into it...
I have to admit, I can't see how the colour identity of hybrid (or phyrexian) cards is in any way non-intuitive. On the contrary, the colour identity is the same as the colour, which is the most logical and intuitive way to have it. Beseech the Queen is a black card, therefore you'd expect its colour identity to be black. Boggart Ram-Gang is a red/green card therefore you'd expect its colour identity to be red and green. Gut Shot is a red card therefore it's only logical that its colour identity is red. I've never come across a player who has any difficulty understanding this (that's not to say everyone agrees with the rule, but it's never confusing, even to new players).
Where the colour identity is non-intuitive is when it is not the same as the card's colours. Off colour flashbacks, kickers and activated abilities for example. I've had plenty of new players who think it's OK to include things like Ancient Grudge in a mono-red deck, as its colour is red regardless of the flashback cost being green. Weird stuff like Naked Singularity (that one is the worst - you can't even argue that you need mana of all its colour identity to use it). And then there's the uncertainty of things like Extort (which of course, doesn't count as black/white).
That is where things start getting non-intuitive for new players, not hybrids. In fact, I'd say allowing hybrids in mono-colour decks is less intuitive, as the cards are multi-colour regardless of what mana you spend on them. To a new player, it's far more confusing to see a mono-green deck with a card that is coloured both red and green, than to be told you couldn't put such a card in said deck.
I was playing Kaalia of the Vast, who was equipped with a Sunforger and had several of her friends out. It was clear I was going to finish things in a few turns unless dealt with, so the person to my left cast Damnation. I had three mana up and had already used my Ghostway a previous turn, so I said, "alright, let's see what I can do to possibly save myself" and activated the Sunforger. I flip through the deck looking for something that might work, but the protection that was left was fast blink like Cloudshift, so I ended up making one of my creatures Unexpectedly Absent so I knew what I would be playing next turn. Before I finish resolving it I pick back up my hand and stare at the Boros Charm that had been sitting in my hand for the past 10 turns that I had completely forgotten about, and at this point I was one mana short.
Hey, at least you went looking for something useful. I've actually gone as far as Sunforgering looking for specific cards that were in my hand before...
I've also done a GSZ for X=8 with the intention of grabbing a Craterhoof Behemoth (which would in all likelihood give me the win thanks to the 10 or so critters I had)....that was sitting forgotten under the Mosswort Bridge that I played on turn 1. And of course, said Mosswort Bridge had just been tapped to pay for the GSZ...
How is that not letting other people play? Presumably, everyone in a playgroup where that is common will be running highly tuned decks, meaning they will also be playing their decks similarly fast or capable of answering such decks. As a result, everyone will be able to play. If everyone's decks are built to go off on turn 3-5 and someone combos off on T4, it's no different from everyone's decks being built to go off on turn 10-12 and someone winning T11.
So again, forget about these silly rules and just play decks that fit how your playgroup wants to play.
Casual and competitive are not by any means mutually exclusive. Many of the least casual players I've come across hate even the slightest thought of competitiveness. You know the kind, the ones who go around telling everyone how a format should be played and throwing a hissy fit the moment someone does something they don't like. That's the antithesis of "casual" - it's taking the game way way too seriously. Whereas many competitive players are very casual - they play to win, but they're not bothered of they don't. They just shuffle up their decks and play again. They're taking things easy, having fun, and yet still playing to win.
So, why exactly do you need these rules again? Just do as I suggested earlier, and the RC suggest and agree with your playgroup how you want to play. No need for anything further.
Except it's actually you that's wrong. The full wording of extort in the CR is irrelevant with regards to colour identity, what matters is what appears as rules text on the card. From earlier in this thread, here's a post from one of the guys who actually creates and maintains the rules of EDH:
The particular examples I see a lot of are the Innistrad off-colour flashback cards. A lot of people getting into EDH over the last couple of years will have a good supply of them, and when building, say, a mono red deck, they see the Ancient Grudge sitting in their box and think "that's a red card, therefore I can put it into my red deck", not realising that the card's colour identity is actually red/green.
The proposal to make hybrids available to either of their colours will exasperate this. People would be able to include cards who's colour is blue/white in thier blue/black deck. To a new player, who's under the impression you have to stick to your commander's colours, that's just going to be confusing.
Of course, such a prinicple can then be extended out to other aspects of the game. Instead of saying "don't play control decks", say "don't play heavier control than your playgroup enjoys". Instead of "don't play MLD", it's "don't play more MLD than your playgroup likes". Or in general, play what the group as a whole likes playing.
So if I did have to condense things down to a set of quick rules, I would have two:
1 - Whichever variation on "don't be an arse" you like - personally, I tend to favour Abraham Lincoln's famous words: "Be excellent to each other and party on dudes", but the exact language is down to you
2 - Discuss and agree with your playgroup on some rough guidelines on what everyone wants to play with and against and generally stick to them.
Possibly a third one:
3 - If newly joining a group, err on the side of caution - it's easier to make friends if you go in with a "crap" deck and lose to hermit druid than if you start with hermit druid and destroy "crap" decks
RWB1 Raymond, Crusader
Legendary Creature - Human Knight Cleric
First Strike, Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield chose a color
Knights and clerics you control have protection from the chosen color
Whenever an opponent casts a spell of the chosen color, that player loses 1 life and you may place a +1/+1 counter on ~.
3/2
Fight the good fight, believe what is right, Crusader, the lord of the realm
To be honest, World Enchantments are a pretty good exmaple of people not having the slightest clue what something does...;)
Which is why you fetch it and PS with Enduring Ideal....
Yeah, I really hate these cards. Collective voyage in particular. Either it screws up the game completely and makes it boring due to trivialising resource management, or someone is doing something deliberate with it, yet the rest of the table is blind to that because they want TEH MANAS!!! I mean, seriously, I've had a game where the Progenitus player did T2 Lotus Cobra followed by a t3 Collective Voyage and the rest of the table still put 10 mana into it...
Where the colour identity is non-intuitive is when it is not the same as the card's colours. Off colour flashbacks, kickers and activated abilities for example. I've had plenty of new players who think it's OK to include things like Ancient Grudge in a mono-red deck, as its colour is red regardless of the flashback cost being green. Weird stuff like Naked Singularity (that one is the worst - you can't even argue that you need mana of all its colour identity to use it). And then there's the uncertainty of things like Extort (which of course, doesn't count as black/white).
That is where things start getting non-intuitive for new players, not hybrids. In fact, I'd say allowing hybrids in mono-colour decks is less intuitive, as the cards are multi-colour regardless of what mana you spend on them. To a new player, it's far more confusing to see a mono-green deck with a card that is coloured both red and green, than to be told you couldn't put such a card in said deck.
Hey, at least you went looking for something useful. I've actually gone as far as Sunforgering looking for specific cards that were in my hand before...
I've also done a GSZ for X=8 with the intention of grabbing a Craterhoof Behemoth (which would in all likelihood give me the win thanks to the 10 or so critters I had)....that was sitting forgotten under the Mosswort Bridge that I played on turn 1. And of course, said Mosswort Bridge had just been tapped to pay for the GSZ...